Michael Mazur
Fable II, 1996-97, oil on canvas,
72 x 72 in.
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david ebony's
new york top ten
michael mazur
at mary ryan
Mar. 27-May 3, 1997
In the shimmering paintings in
this exhibition, Michael Mazur has
arrived at a clear
personal idiom -- a form of
abstraction with subtle landscape
references, which he has been
developing over the years. While
his palette is broadly exuberant,
he limits his brush strokes to
just a few energetic but simple
gestures. As in ancient Chinese
painting, which Mazur's images
sometimes recall, these brush
strokes can almost be catalogued.
Most of the luminous canvases on
view in this show are made of
countless layers of short daubs of
thin paint that drip down the
canvas. In many works, these
markings are complimented by
slender and graceful elongated
horizontal lines.
In a large painting, Two Hills,
the landscape appears to dissolve
into an ethereal mist. Canvases
such as Aurora I and Fable II, are
works of pure painting. In these
canvases and a number of others on
view, Mazur sets aside all
landscape references. Here, the
subject is light itself.
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